Bobby Seale has never had much use for the status quo.
But at a United Law Students of Color-sponsored lecture last February,
the Black Panther Party’s founder and former chairman wasn’t
questioning authority so much as questioning history. Taking issue
with the mainstream perception of the Panthers, he emphasized the
controversial group’s less-publicized social programs.

The media usually portrays the Black Panthers as violent
revolutionaries, but Seale said the other side — the group’s penchant
for helping the poor — rarely gets told. “We were feeding
250,000 kids free breakfast at 49 chapters and branches
throughout the U.S.” recounted Seale. “After that, the California
state legislature gave five million dollars to schools for free
breakfast programs, and 28 state legislatures followed suit in the
next year and a half, all because of that free breakfast children’s
program that we had no government funding for.”